Birds of the Apocalypse
by afrocelt
Summary: The tale of Icarus... in the zombie apocalypse. Don't ask me why I wrote this, it came from a dream. Like most of my stories.


**1**

It's been a year since I left the Hole. A year since I left dad –

No. Dad left me. Because we'd made plans, promises, together. He filled his diary with notes, my head with dreams, my heart with hopes and curiosity and desire - until I had no choice but to go. He told me his stories about the outside and all the different countries and their cultures and landscapes and climates and – I could have forgotten it all, if he'd let me.

But no.

Then, at the very last minute, the last second when it really counted?

He bailed.

Said he couldn't do it, couldn't leave. Too dangerous, he said. We have a duty here, we can't desert. We wouldn't survive anyway.

I won't believe that. Why was he so afraid? Was it the General? The Boss? I guess they finally got into dad's head. 'Cos dad's the one who wanted, needed to escape. I've seen the determination in his eyes; he needed this.

He's the one who taught me everything I know, ever since I was a little kid. How to build, fix, design – survive. After that it just became about survival. Always survival. And somewhere along the line – probably when he got recruited to the Hole and the General wore him down until he lost his soul – somewhere, my dad forgot how to _live_ in all that survival. I guess that's why things happened the way they did.

It would have been perfect as well. He came up with the perfect strategy, despite all we were up against:

Guards on rotating shifts 24-7, no chance of getting past or through them cos only the best of the best are chosen. As if that and the threat of bloodthirsty walkers wasn't enough, any guard caught slacking would be faced with the death or abandonment penalty, courtesy of the General. These guys had plenty of motive to do their jobs and do them well, so trying to get past them? No chance. Of course, Dad didn't waste time trying to find a distraction to get around them, he just waited. And waited. It drove me nuts, not know even what we were waiting for. But soon enough the call came.

The seasonal walker swarm. There's at least four (five if we're 'lucky') huge ones each year. That's the only time the guards stand down, ironically. Everyone is ordered to retreat behind the Wall.

Let me explain the Wall – it's literally just that. Tonnes and tonnes of impenetrable (well that's exaggerating, it's kinda just thick and heavy) concrete reinforced with veins of steel alloy. Sounds low tech – and it kinda is – rumour has it there's one with the highest grade magnesium alloy at the camp 400 miles east from here. But ours is special. It's the first one of its kind, revolutionary – well at least it was ten years ago. A lot more of us started surviving once my dad came up with the design and structure for such a huge fortification. It's how he got hired to such a prominent position in the Hole in the first place. Unfortunately for us, our camp is also the oldest. And the poorest. I mean, the Hole had to get its name from somewhere: we're the slum of all the campsites in the vicinity. But that beside the point. The Wall, it does the job. It's safe. No walker swarm in years has made it within the 360° circumference, its height so vast that its 200ft frame resembles a horrible giant dome about to cave in on itself. That's why the officials can't keep it closed 24/7. No supplies, or sunlight or even _air_ would be able to get in. We only have a temporary functioning system, recycling air and water for two weeks at the most. And it takes so much energy to open and close the damn thing that we have a limited electrical supply (if any) for the best part of three weeks afterwards.

Told you it was a primitive system.

Walker swarms can be unpredictable, from the low hundreds to maybe thousands in mid-summer. So as I said, Everyone is ordered to retreat behind the Wall. But not until the very last second, cos after that dome seals no one knows when it's gonna open again.

No one dares venture out in a swarm. It means certain death. For most people anyway.

But my dad, he was in the know on a very particular project. Top secret stuff. Privilege that comes with being the chief engineer. Now everyone knows there's no cure for the Infection. Otherwise they wouldn't be calling it the apocalypse now would they? However, that doesn't mean there aren't other ways around the end of the world. Over time, people began to notice that to get through hordes of walkers you had to blend in with them. Not simply look like them – I mean their eyes are pretty much rotted out anyway. No, you had to _smell_ like them. Guess how that happens.

Yep, you gotta drench yourself in infected blood, guts and gore, covering your own natural living scent with… that. Mm. Delicious.

There's just a tiny problem with this method. When someone comes into contact with infected material, far less smothers themselves with the gunk, the risk of infection gets pretty high.

So one of the chemical engineers under my dad, she was working on that certain top secret something – something that could make you smell like walkers without turning you into one. 'Harness the stench, without the drench,' – came up with the slogan myself. Not that anyone there cared for my artistic flair - shame; in another life I could have made millions.

Anyway the first successful prototype came out three weeks before our planned escape. My dad, being as important as he was, was among the first to know.

Did he abuse that power? Absolutely.

The night before the swarm was due, dad flashed his all access card, strolled into the lab, swiped two bottles of the stuff and was away with the flick of a lab coat. Getting the food pellets and water to last us both at least a week was more difficult, but he did it. My brilliant, cunning dad did it all, and no one suspected a thing.

At 8:42am the next morning, the swarm reached 1500 metres away. The all clear came. The Wall started descending. The scouts were in. The runners were in. The guards were in. Everyone that should have been in, was in.

There dad and I stood, at the abandoned end of the complex, waiting for that Wall to drop. Oh. So. Slooowly.

But we had to wait till the very, very last second. The point of no return. Where the wall was low enough so no one would chance coming after us.

I clasped the bottle in my gloved hand, leather squeaking on glass. A few drops was all it took and my brand new 'aftershave' was pungent in the cold morning air. I turned to dad, picked up the rucksack he'd prepared the night before, ready for that mad glint in his eye to tell me just when to run –

He looked at me all right. No, he looked right through me. Staring at the towering wall as it closed for the millionth time since we've been here. I swear I saw the determination drain right out of his eyes. Nothing but fear sat there now.

Fear of the General. Fear of the Boss. Fear of the Hole. Fear of never being free again…

But overshadowing everything, it was unmistakably his fear of not being able to survive that spoke that day.

"I can't." He said.

"I just… I'm sorry. Come back son. It's too dangerous. We… we'll never make it." He said.

The utter hopelessness in his voice, the scared look in his gaze as he faced the outside and hordes of the brainless, waiting to feast on us – and he almost had me scared too. My whole life I'd listened to dad, he'd always protected me. And I'd always gotten through. I'd always survived. But this time, I heard what he was saying and it was logical and reasonable and all that - but it just didn't make any sense.

He remembered a world without all this. A world beyond this dome, this wall. With no rules or rations, where each day was new and where simply walking down the street might as well have been flying through the sky it was so free. He had sweet memories he could taste whenever he felt like it. But this place took them away from him. They indoctrinated him into _survival,_ just like they brainwashed everyone else. I wonder if it was the mutants out there that were the _real_ zombies.

I didn't want to end up like that. I wanted to keep myself. I wanted memories of my own.

"I can't." I said.

"We - I - have to go now." I said.

By this time it was ridiculously close, the wall nearly kissing the ground. As if that wasn't enough, we'd been spotted loitering suspiciously. Guards were on their way over.

And he still stood there. Lifeless.

"Fine. You stay here, trapped then."

I slid under the wall. Felt the metre wide block press me into the ground. I was furious and terrified and desperate to reach that breeze carrying the fresh scent of walkers on wild grass. Backpack under. Foot, body, left arm, head –

But I hesitated – I couldn't help myself – my dad's protests, murmurs then yells then screams, pounding at the concrete, reaching after me, begging me to stop, come back –

My right arm reached out like it had its own life, like it just couldn't leave my father behind.

So it stayed.

I don't want to remember the crushing agony of having a forearm stuck under the wall.

Or the sound of the bones severing themselves into hundreds of tiny fractures – my elbow locking –then shattering altogether – the feeling – sensation – of my own wet hot thick blood spurting all over my face –

The screams that weren't even screams. They were howls - my whole life balling up in my stomach and being retched out my throat - my insides coming apart with every gasp –

You ever heard of the phrase "cut and run?" Well I took it to a whole new level that day.

Pure adrenaline is a funny thing. Dad always said I had too much of it, that I was ridiculously hyperactive as a child, and even then at fourteen. I'm sure any other person would've died that day. Not to be cocky, but a fact's a fact. Any number of factors – shock or blood loss or walkers or –

But not me. Of course, I'm the son of the genius Daedalus. There had to be _something_ special about me.

 _"The bone is already taken care of…"_ a weirdly calm voice spoke to me from nowhere, when my roars got a bit quieter. Survival instinct, passed down from dad. It happened as if automatically, I was a puppet of my own brain.

 _"I'm trapped. It's me or my arm. Blood everywhere. Walkers about 1000 metres away. The scent: coupled with my fresh, living, uninfected blood, it could be overpowered. If I travel with an open wound through walkers, they'll smell it. Not to mention raw tissue will carry the infection. All problems. Big ones."_

 _"Solution?"_

 _"Backpack."_

 _My remaining arm, shaking, scrabbled with the zip._

 _"Knife?"_

 _"Check."_

 _"Ethanol?"_

 _"Check."_

 _"Fabric?"_

 _"Check."_

 _"Gas torch?"_

 _"…Yes."_

I didn't really have time to contemplate the sheer luck that I had 1) all the right equipment, 2) actually paid attention to that class teaching how to deal with traumatic amputation in 5 minutes, and 3) that walkers are extremely slow, well, walkers.

 _Saw at my flesh, ragged pieces, ragged screams –_

 _-walkers at 700 metres-_

 _One hand, a stick from the ground, and teeth to rip and tie a tourniquet –_

 _-walkers at 400 metres-_

 _Torch on. Don't waste fuel. Clean knife. Heat. Don't think just do don't think just do don't-_

 _Ethanol splash._

 _-burningburningburning-_

 _Hot knife._

 _-BURNINGBURNINGBURNING_ ** _BURNING_** _-_

 _Cauterised._

 _Walkers at 100 metres._

Sting of blood and burning flesh in my eyes and nostrils and brain, I numbly stood, now free from the wall in more ways than one. I remember smothering the smouldering stump with almost half the bottle of scent. Lifted my pack with my remaining hand. Sent a prayer to any gods out there –

And walked – trudged, ever so slowly – into the swarm.


End file.
